The Shelter
by LaDine
Summary: Sometimes sex is just an excuse for something else.


"Have you ever fooled around with another bloke, eh, Avon?"

"And what if I have?" Avon lifted his eyes momentarily and resumed his reading. Vila shifted in his sit.

"Well?"

"Are you interested?" Avon asked, his smile cold and dangerous. Too many teeth.

"I'm desperate."

"Ah." A pause and arched eyebrows. "Otherwise you would not be asking _me_."

"Why bothering? You wouldn't say yes if you had other options. But you don't. Maybe you're desperate as well. That's why I'm asking _you_."

Avon remained silent and focused on Vila, but the Delta did not waver. His eyes were fixed on Avon's face, his own showing a self-confidence unknown to the rest of the crew on the Liberator.

Eventually, Avon looked down and spoke softly.

"There are always options."

"Yeeh, your right hand?"

"_And_ the left one," replied Avon, looking briefly at Vila and smiling. This time truly smiling. Vila also smiled, but he was not distracted.

"What are you offering?" Avon asked after a short while.

"Anything you want," Vila answered, nonchalantly. "Handjobs, blowjobs... more, even, if you're game."

Avon reacted visibly to those words.

"I do not care for anal sex," he replied.

"Why not?" Vila asked, frowning.

"I fail to see the appeal."

"Have you ever tried it?"

"I have never tried to be hanged and I'm pretty sure I do not like it."

"You're not into erotic asphyxiation. Fine."

"Vila," he said, as a warning.

"I said fine!" The thief looked more confident and relaxed, as though he felt his prize were near.

"I see that some of your partners have been... adventurous... and that they could read."

"You're not my first Alpha, you know."

"I... haven't said 'yes'"

"You don't have to say anything, really. A small nod, a discrete look will do."

"I would not have taken you for a master of subtlety."

"I'm just making things easier for you."

"How kind."

"C'mon, Avon, it can't be worse than a lonely hand in the dark."

"Two hands, more exactly, and I always leave the light on."

"You like to look at yourself when you're wanking. Yeeh, your cock must be beautiful." He said, provokingly. He had noticed how Avon flinched every time he talked dirty. "Two hands, really? it must be huge as well. Big and pretty, that's how I like'm."

"Those two hands don't have to be in the same place all the time. And did you say you were a sex expert?"

"I didn't say that. I have a bit of experience, that's all."

"I thought you liked women."

"I like them all right, but they aren't always available. Not in prison, anyway."

"It was there where you learnt what you say you know. Have you had many lovers?" That word made Vila laugh.

"I wouldn't call them lovers, no. Well, a bunch, I suppose. I started very young, you see."

"How old were you?"

"Fourteen," he answered, curtly.

"Were you willing?" Another dry laugh from Vila.

"Not particularly, no."

"But you let him do that to you."

"He didn't ask me, you see. And I wasn't a pretty sight when he finished with me."

"And still you did not kill him."

"Kill him?" Vila asked, his face wearing a confused expression, as if he would not believe that the Alpha were asking that. "He was just a poor devil, Avon. He didn't last long there. I don't think he was even conscious when he... That's our Federation's procedures. Some of their treatments kill people's heads, destroy them until they're not human anymore." Vila's voice was very soft. "He died shortly afterwards. Slit his arms open from wrist to elbow. Some old pals helped him, they said, as a favour. Had been a good bloke. Decent." He made a pause, lost, for a moment, in a long gone past. "I've seen many men being... wiped out. Just like him." He smiled bitterly. "I learnt quickly."

"You're a compassionate fool, Vila," Avon said, without malice. Vila kept his fixed stare at his companion and gave him a half-hearted smile.

"I'll tell you what, I blow you and you finish me off with your hands. It's a good deal, isn't it? We could start with a bit of hugging and touching, to put us in the mood, so to speak. What do you say, hmm?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Oh, Avon, c'mon! You're just playing hard to get!"

The smile he got this time promised trouble.

"Did you ever think I was easy?" Vila's eyes became difficult to read for a few seconds.

"All right then. Look, what about a change of scenario? We go to my cabin. To drink and chat. All nice and cosy."

"So you can jump me without fear of being interrupted."

"You think I'm crazy? I wouldn't dare!"

"Oh well. Let's see what else you have in mind then. If you have one, that is."

"One idea?"

"One _mind_."

"Very funny."

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

"I love this song." With a glass in his hand, Vila started to dance, only half-comfortably, more than half-shyly. Avon observed him, amused.

"I take this is your best attempt at seduction." Vila stopped and looked disappointed and hurt.

"Please, just don't ruin me the night, will you? I told you I just wanted to talk. Look Avon, I only suggested a bit of fun. Of the fleshy and sweaty type. You don't want to, fine! Let's talk instead, as if we were friends. What we're not."

"For some unfathomed reason I don't believe you."

"You don't believe me." Vila sounded exasperated. "You know you have a problem, don't you?" He gulped his drink and went to the cabinet to refill it. "I wish Gan were still here," his tone was mournful and more than a trifle angry.

"Did you have a sexual arrangement with Gan?" Vila just looked at him, as if deciding what to say.

"No." He spoke, eventually, looking Avon in the eye. "He was a sort of big brother for me. And a good friend. Kind and trustful. I miss him."

"You did not invite me here waiting I would behave as he did, did you?" Avon was no longer amused. Somehow, he did not seem to fit here in Vila's cabin, between Vila's things. Hearing Vila talk about how he missed Gan. How good a friend he had been. Somehow, Vila was more a person, less a clown here, in his cabin, his music filling the air.

The Delta did not answer, but he went back to his chair and let himself down. Then he offered his bottle to Avon, who took it between tensed fingers.

"Sometimes I feel I'm fed up with Blake and his damned cause," Vila said, conversationally.

"Only sometimes?" Avon had tried to sound normal, but he did not quite succeed. Vila half-smiled, as an answer, as Avon looked for a way to keep the conversation light and playful.

"Have you... proposed to the girls?" He asked a few moments later.

"Well, I've made meself clear, I think. I mean, they should know by now that I'm really interested in a tumble. I like them both. I'd prefer Cally, though."

"Why Cally?"

"Well, she doesn't seem to be the type that kicks you out of bed if you do something she doesn't like, does she? And she's lots sweeter than Jenna. I bet she loves cuddling. I love cuddling."

"I also... would prefer Cally, but not for the same reasons."

"Why then?" Vila looked interested.

"She is considerably less dangerous than Jenna. I don't want dangerous people in my bed. However attractive they might be."

"People?"

"What?"

"People. You said 'people', not women. I'm not dangerous."

"I thought you only wanted to talk."

"We're talking."

"So we are. All right Vila, come here."

"You're saying yes!"

"I'm not saying anything, you, master of subtlety." The Alpha stood up and Vila approached him. The Delta tended a shy hand towards Avon's trousers but did not actually touched him. He looked up at him.

"You're sure you want it standing up?"

Avon took his hand hastily and did not let it go.

"You don't have to squeeze my fingers like that, I'm not going anywhere," he whispered. Avon answered in the same soft tones, "You said you wanted a bit of touching first."

"And hugging."

Maybe that way, surrounded by Vila's arms, he would fit in. Maybe.

As timidly as if they were two wood puppets, they slid their arms over each other.

A very soft tremor, and Avon looked at Vila's face. The thief was laughing, but his eyes were those of an elder brother, of a father, of a lover, of a friend.

"Come on, Avon, breathe."

"How could I have forgotten."

The music was almost hypnotic. The yellowish light too cold. Avon thought of wind and storms and icy raindrops falling, falling, falling. And then a shelter, there, in the middle of nowhere, provided with wool blankets, a small hearth, hot tea and ginger biscuits. The rain, outside, growing stronger.

He shuddered.

His hair, wet and cold, his clothes, drenched. The fire, softly caressing his arms, his face. _Let me warm you._

The world was ending outside, or so it seemed. Here, in the small hut, there was no danger, no cold. _Is this what you want?_

"Yes."

The bedding arrangements looked inviting, bathed by the flame. _Lie in._

"Avon," _Avon,_ the fire cracked. "You're in there?"

"Of course. Are you that drunk already?"

"You looked... distracted, out."

"It was a fantasy"

"A sexual fantasy?"

"No, not sexual, no."

"Pity." Only that not, really. "You're so warm." Vila nuzzled behind his ear, and the feeling made him shiver.

"Tell me about it," he asked Avon.

"No."

"Yes. I'll make it real. For you."

"No, you can't. It's a fantasy. I don't want it to be real."

"Avon, close your eyes."

The sound of the rain was back again. And the wind. And the soft kisses of the fire on his face. And the tranquillity, if not the happiness, of being in a shelter, for now. He did not need anything else.

The fireplace was shining brightly, hotly and just for him. It was even too comfortable to last long. It had to be. It always was.

"Let me in," the fire whispered again. Avon opened his eyes.

"What, _exactly,_ are you talking about?"

"Your dream. Let me in. You're leaving me out." Vila's eyes were pleading. Avon wanted to look ad his hands, but they were behind Vila's body.

"There is no room."

"You just don't want me there." Vila said to Avon's collarbone.

Vila. With him. There, nobody knew their names. There was no one else.

"I thought you wanted sex."

"And hugging. Sex can wait, can't it?"

"Yes, I think so." He conceded. Then he caught one of Vila's hands and looked at it pensively. "How can someone of your grade have such...?"

"Lovely hands?" Vila ended the question, smiling mischievously. Avon just smiled in return, as for himself.

"I'm glad you're here, Avon." Vila said, and his eyes were serious. Avon liked that expression. That was a face that nobody saw as frequently as he did. He liked to think that.

"Let's pretend we're not running away, that nobody wants us dead. Just for tonight." Vila had a beautiful voice. Warm as a blanket. Warm as a friend.

"Nobody knows who we are," Avon added.

"We are alone, the two of us." Vila hugged Avon tighter.

Avon closed his eyes and saw Vila in the shelter. And he opened them again and saw himself in Vila's arms, in Vila's room.

And everything was in place.


End file.
